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Former Senator and GOP presidential hopeful Rick Santorum has said in an interview Wednesday that Pope Francis' recent comments regarding homosexuality, made earlier this week following Brazil's World Youth Day, were taken out of context by mainstream media.

Santorum, a devout Roman Catholic, argues that the Pope's comments regarding homosexuality, made aboard the papal airplane on Monday, were taken out of context, as the pontiff was answering a question regarding an alleged "gay lobby" within the Vatican, and was not speaking directly about homosexuality itself.

"I've read the whole transcript, and what he said early on was that 'I don't know anybody who puts gay on their identification card.' He said it in that context," Santorum told Buzzfeed in an interview on Wednesday evening.

Santorum went on to clarify that the pope's comments regarding homosexuality fall completely in line with Church doctrine, and Catholicism has always advocated the importance of love and respect for all of God's creation. He confirmed that Catholic teaching demands followers treat homosexual people with dignity and respect, but that homosexual acts were still sinful.

"I think all believers need to understand that we need to respect and love everybody and treat everybody with dignity and respect. There's no room for harshness in respect to this issue - but that doesn't mean the church doesn't have the right to believe what is right and wrong," Santorum said.

Santorum was referencing the comments made by Pope Francis on Monday while traveling from Brazil to Rome after attending World Youth Day. The comments were in response to a question regarding the existence of a gay lobby within the Vatican, and they have been largely taken out of context by secular media as being a sign that the Catholic church is becoming more accepting of homosexual behavior.

Several news outlets, including the Associated Press and USA Today, have chosen to focus on one segment of Francis' comments, in which the pope said: "If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?"

There was missing context to reports of those comments, and also more included in the pope's statement: "The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains this very well. It says one must not marginalize these persons, they must be integrated into society. The problem isn't this [homosexual] orientation – we must be like brothers and sisters. The problem is something else, the problem is lobbying either for this orientation or a political lobby or a Masonic lobby."

Francis also elaborated on the alleged existence of a "gay lobby" within the Vatican, which some claim attempts to advance the homosexual agenda within the Catholic church.

"So much is written about the gay lobby. I have yet to find on a Vatican identity card the word 'gay,'" Francis said. "They say there are some gay people here. I think that when we encounter a gay person, we must make the distinction between the fact of a person being gay and the fact of a lobby, because lobbies are not good."

Cardinal Timothy Dolan of the Archdiocese of New York recently sought to clarify the Pope's comments, telling "CBS This Morning" earlier this week that the pope's comments were about accepting homosexuals while not accepting homosexual behavior.

"Pope Francis would be the first to say, 'My job isn't to change church teaching. My job is to present it as clearly as possible,'" said Dolan on Tuesday. "While certain acts may be wrong [...] we will always love and respect the person and treat the person with dignity."

The Pope's comments fall in line with Catholic Catechism, which states: "The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition."